Unanswered: Setting value of ComboBox attached to remote Store without having to preload Store

I was extremely surprised to see that the out-of-the-box configuration of ComboBox doesn't appear to allow you to set the value of a ComboBox with a remote store unless the Store is loaded.

Essentially I have a form with many "lookup" combo boxes (approximately 15) - I want the value of these ComboBoxes to be set using loadRecord on the form, but I only want the underlying store to load if the user attempts to change that value. After all, it is unlikely they're going to change every field on the form!

If there is already a way to do this in ExtJS that I have missed, then please correct me, but from hours of investigation I couldn't find a reasonable way.

I personally want my store to be bound to the combobox tightly so if I need the display values there, I load the store upfront to have that data available. Request batching is what saves the extra calls.

Although it is a remote store, I simply have set the data config, with one value, my desired default-value.
Together with the value config option, it now selects my default without doing an initial request.